Police: High-end drug and prostitution ring busted on Super Bowl week

(CNN) -- The 18 operators of a high-end drug trafficking and prostitution ring allegedly banking on Super Bowl week to deliver "party packs" of cocaine and prostitutes have been arrested, New York authorities said Thursday.

The nearly year-long undercover investigation discovered that in addition to selling the "party packs," the ring allegedly laundered the illegal proceeds through front businesses that included a clothing wholesaler, a wig wholesaler, a limousine service and a beauty supply wholesaler, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement.

The ring targeted wealthy customers in New York for large events, authorities said. Last week, a text message was blasted to frequent customers noting that "new sexy & beautiful girls R in town waiting for u." The enterprise also ran numerous advertisements on the Internet and on public access television.

Intercepted conversations involving the ring revealed that it used various code names for cocaine, including "party," "jewelry," "powder," "maek" and "Soojaebi," a Korean noodle and vegetable soup, the statement said. The prostitutes delivered the cocaine to the customers in what was referred to as a "party pack."

The ring allegedly generated millions of dollars in illegal proceeds and planned to target high-end clientele coming to the New York area for the Super Bowl.

The 11-month investigation involved undercover investigators, physical and electronic surveillance and reviews of business records, the statement said. The attorney general's Organized Crime Task Force and the New York Police found that the criminal enterprise spanned Manhattan, Brooklyn, Long Island, Queens and several states. The operation was based in Manhattan.

Customers were charged for sex and drugs as a package deal, "sometimes billing for cocaine in an equivalent number of 'hours' of prostitution, the statement said.

The ring commonly supplied customers with large quantities of drugs to get them impaired, authorities said. Then the room would be flooded with additional prostitutes, and the customer's credit cards would be charged, at times upward of $10,000 for one night. Through front businesses, the ring would charge credit cards for goods and services not actually provided in order to hide the purchases of cocaine and sex.